Noisy images are encountered in many fields. For example, medical images by ultrasound, x-ray, and MRI are often so noisy that it is difficult to accurately perceive the critical contours of organs, bones, and medical instruments that are obscured by the noise. Noisy images are also an important problem in many other areas, such as radar, weapon detection during airport inspection of luggage, and the like. These needs have motivated efforts to deal with very difficult machine vision problems using computerized mathematical methods for contour enhancement in noisy images.
As will be understood, image enhancement involves manipulation of image data values in order to improve the appearance of the data as perceived by humans, as well as to render the data more suitable for computer analysis of the image. Various image enhancement processes have been proposed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,803,736, issued Feb. 7, 1989 to Grossberg et al approaches contour perception by use of mask filters. Other prior art references will be discussed hereinafter, along with a detailed explanation of the present invention and concepts related thereto. That discussion will assist a deeper understanding of the present invention, which involves use of Curve Indicator Random Field (CIRF) filtering for contour enhancement in noisy images.